CVE-2026-53794rsync before 3.5.0 contains a logic error in --max-alloc handling that allows a sender or configuration setting --max-alloc=0 to disable allocation sanity checks entirely rather than enforcing a zero-byte cap. Attackers can exploit this flaw to cause the receiver to attempt unbounded memory allocations for file list and data structures, potentially exhausting available memory and causing a denial of service.